Grieving? Here are some books that could help you deal with loss

Loss of a loved one can be sudden where one moment they are there talking animatedly with you and the next moment they are not. Very great moments can give way to the most devastating loss of your life. You might have seen it coming, especially when it is a terminal disease but the pain of losing someone you love is still be unbearable.

Sometimes, the news that will change your life might find you going about your business without a care in the world. Losing someone you love is not easy at all and some people are yet to recover a year later, two years or thirty years later.

Other people have lost businesses, their health, flourishing careers, marriages, relationships and the loss has made them unable to move on.

During those times, you will get text messages, whispered prayers, but eventually, people move on to other things in life, leaving you to bear the pain on your own.

One of the ways to recovery after loss is talking to someone that has lost something or their loved one before. But in case you unable to find someone who can lend you a listening ear, you can find some kinship with people who have gone through similar pain and shared with others in form of books.

Life has very many setbacks and they can really break a person if left unchecked. You need a lot of resilience to be able to counter the effects of these setbacks and eventually move on in life. This book is all about building facing your current problems, building that resilience and eventually finding happiness again.

The author of this book, Sheryl Sandberg lost her husband and she felt that her world and that of her children had come to an end. She thought that they would never experience happiness again. Sheryl found her husband, Dave Goldberg collapsed on the floor of the gym.

An excerpt of her book reads, “I was in ‘the void,” she writes, “a vast emptiness that fills your heart and lungs and restricts your ability to think or even breathe.”

According to her friend Adam Grant, who is a psychologist at Wharton, resilience is a muscle that you have to build because no one is born with a certain amount of resilience. He added that there are concrete steps that people can take to enable them to make a full recovery from the life-shattering experiences that they encounter.

Basically, Option B is a combination of Adam’s research on how to find strength when facing adversity and the personal insights from Sheryl. The book also explores the different hardships faced by many people and these include violence of war, disasters, sexual assault, natural disasters, job loss, and illnesses.

From their stories, you learn a lot about the ability of the human spirit to endure some of the problems that life throws at them. The book also describes how they went on to discover joy despite these challenges.
From the book, we learn that resilience does not only come from inside us but from outside support as well.

You will also get great insight from how to know about our feelings, be part of resilient families, and raise well-rounded children. The inherent lessons can be applied to the struggles we go through on a daily basis and this makes us able to face what lied ahead of us.

2. The Kids Are All Right: A Memoir Kindle Edition-Diana Welch

The four Welch siblings had too much on their plate, what with the mysterious death of their father, followed by their mother’s cancer diagnosis and lawyers who wanted nothing but to file for bankruptcy. Despite all these, the four were able to handle them together.

Unfortunately, the siblings did not stay together for long after their mother died. Liz, sixteen; Dan, fourteen; and Diana, eight were taken by different family friends while Amanda who was nineteen years went to college.

At college, her life went south as she engaged in drugs and music. Liz lived a similar life in high school until she graduated and found a nanny job in Norway. Dan changed went to boarding school after living with a guardian and came back again to the guardian. Diana, who was the youngest had to start living a new life under a new identity and was told to forget everything about her past. The other siblings would have none of that and stuck with their little sister.

The book is told by alternating the voices of the four siblings. It is a story of lost souls who went through unimaginable loss, unbreakable bonds, humor and were able to build resilience. Eventually, they turned out well and were reunited.

This is a must read if you or someone you know is grieving from the loss of their parents and wants to know how they can hold together as siblings.

3. The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion

In this book, Joan Didion shares how she lost her husband and as of that was not difficult enough; she had to watch her child become sick and the condition worsened by the day. Her story on how to understand grief will certainly inspire you.

There is also a strong connection between family and marriage as well as what it means to lose someone that you really loved. From this book, you will learn that loss and its devastating effects are universal and you do not have to face them alone.

4. The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

Fiction stories can give you clarity about a situation just as with memoirs. The Sky is Everywhere, is about 17-year-old Lennie Walker, a girl who idolizes her sister Bailey and hides behind her shadow.

Things fall apart for Lennie when Bailey dies and she finds it difficult to cope with the death. She does not know how to fall in love with someone without the guidance of her sister, among other issues. This book will melt your heart and will also help you cope with loss in a powerful way.

5. You Can Heal Your Life Paperback – By Loise Hay

Published in 1984, you can heal your life again is a book by Loise Hay that bears a timeless message that all of us are responsible for our reality. According to the author, we are responsible for our “dis-ease” whereby we allow self-hatred to make us ill.

In the book, Hay has included several ailments with emotional causes. For each of the causes, she has also given an affirmation that will help you overcome the illnesses.
An excerpt in the book read: Life is really very simple. What we give out, we get back.

“What we think about ourselves becomes the truth for us. I believe that everyone, myself included, is responsible for everything in our lives, the best and the worst. Every thought we think is creating our future. Each one of us creates our experiences by our thoughts and our feelings. The thoughts we think and the words we speak create our experiences. ”

In her book, Hay emphasizes the fact that almost anything can be healed as long as we do the mental work.

1 Comment

There is a book by Iyanla Vanzant, the phenomenal author and life coach. The book is called “In The Meantime” and its about journeying through life in phases especially after a major life event. As with everything Iyanla Vazant, its a thumping good read.